Israeli Testimony: âIf âroof knockingâ was conducted and no one came out after a few minutes, then the assumption was that there was no one there.â

Breaking the SilenceÂ is an organization of veteran combatants who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada,Â and have taken it upon themselves to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories. TheyÂ endeavor to stimulate public debate about the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that populationâs everyday life. Their work aims to bring an end to the occupation.

testimony catalog number:Â 568083area:Â Gaza stripperiod:Â 2014

There were cases in which families were apparently killed by fighter jet strikes. How do you explain that?
A lot of houses were hit, and some of those houses were also shared by occupants aside from [Hamas] militants. I think most of the families that were hurt were in cases like Shujaâiyya, (the testifier is referring to the artillery shot in the aftermath of the event in which seven IDF soldiers were killed when their APC was hit by a rocket) where the threshold for opening fire was more lax because forces were in immediate danger.

But the forces were operating in neighborhoods that were supposed to be uninhabited.
âSupposed to beâ is one thing, but in reality there were people in there sometimes. In the urban areas of Rafah and Khuzaâa, every other house was marked as âactiveâ (being used by militants). It was a real hornetâs nest in there, and they took down those houses systematically. âRoof knockingâ (a method by which a small missile is fired on the roof of a building as a warning shot to its residents that it is about to be struck) followed by a boom, âroof knocking,â a boom. Despite the fact that no one was âsupposed to beâ in there.

But there are means of confirming that there arenât any people [in the houses], so how did it happen that they got killed anyway?
We canât know everything. We did everything we could in order to know. If the family had no phone and a âroof knockingâ was conducted, and after a few minutes no one came out, then the assumption was that there was no one there.

You were working under the assumption that once a âroof knockingâ was conducted everyone leaves the building immediately, and if nobody leaves it means there was no one inside?
People who are willing to sacrifice themselves, thereâs nothing you can do. We have no way of knowing if there were people in there who decided not to get out.

But the bomb was dropped on the house?
Yes.

And say after a âroof knockingâ 10 people go up on the roof of the house?
Then you donât strike the house.

And what if after a âroof knockingâ 10 people stay inside the living room?
If people were inside the house I didnât know about it. But I donât think that was taken into consideration [over whether or not to bomb the house].

Is it a requirement to make sure no civilians are in a structure before itâs attacked by a fighter jet?
Itâs not obligatory. Say the target was [Hamasâ] deputy battalion commander in Shujaâiyya, an attack would be launched if the number of civilians wasnât too high. By too high, I mean a two-digit number.